Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Gene Gardner <g_gardner1234 AT yahoo.com>]

Can anyone on the list direct me to a resource that lists the loan words that 
have crossed over from other languages (Egyptian, Persian, Greek, etc) into 
the Hebrew Scriptures.
 
 Thanks.
 
                
---------------------------------
Brings words and photos together (easily) with
 PhotoMail  - it's free and works with Yahoo! Mail.
>From yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com  Wed Feb  8 10:58:16 2006
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Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2006 17:58:15 +0200
From: Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] CV syllables, was music in Hebrew
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On 2/8/06, Karl Randolph wrote:

> > > As far as the Siloam inscription is concerned, I
> > > don't know what you are talking about. Consistently
> > > the masculine possessive is indicated by the -W,
> > > just like most of Tanakh.
> >
> > [...] Both the context and the spelling suggest that the
> > reading is in the plural - "his peers."  By context, I mean,
> > that it is more likely that a group of diggers was on each
> > side of the tunnel than two sole diggers.  If read in the
> > plural, the text refers to each digger as he approaches
> > the other team -- the team of diggers (plural) on the other
> > side.
> >
> This is supposed to be grammatically singular. This
> is written in a form where the singular is used to
> refer to a plural subject. Another example is
> Judges 7:22. Such usage is not unusual in Tanakh.

There are several issues here.  That such usage is not
unusual in the Bible does not mean that other usages are
not possible.  Furthermore, even if this is the only type of
usage in the Bible, would you insist that no other usage
was possible in the Biblical language?  And finally, even
if we had some way to be certain that in the entire language
of the Hebrew Bible (even parts of the language not attested
in the Hebrew Bible) there is no such usage, how do you
know that this also applies to the pre-exilic inscriptions
from Judea?

Specifically, my impression is that this form is not a
"grammatical form that uses the singular to refer to plural."
Rather, it is a grammatical form that elaborates a specific
case out of many similar ones.  There was a war, each
soldier thrust his sword to his opponent.  There is a dig,
each digger is calling out to the diggers on the other side.
One soldier cannot battle more than a single opponent at
once (he has one sword, and the sword can only be thrust
into one body at a time), but a digger can call out and can
dig towards the  diggers on the other side.  This is why
you'd expect that a soldier would fight his opponent (singular),
but a digger dig towards other diggers (plural).

In any case, even if it is in the singular, the -w is not
necessarily a mater lectionis -- see the explanation
by Dr. Davila in the blog posting.

> As for the materes lectionis, their use is very
> often optional. There are a few words where their
> use is de regueur, such as )LHYM, but otherwise a
> "missing" mater lectionis is nothing special, not
> worth noting. It is found more often than you
> expect in Tanakh. If one reads the text with
> Masoretic points, the Qere often masks "missing"
> materes lectionis.

Maybe if you noted them you'd find there is some
regularity involved -- even for the cases where they
are missing.  But since you figure they are "not worth
noting," I guess you'd never know.

> Your comments indicate that you are not familiar
> with the text of the Tanakh.

I gave specific examples.  You prefer to answer by
a generalization based on your own subjective
impression from reading the Bible.  Instead of making
claims about my familiarity or non-familiarity with the
text of the Hebrew Bible, why don't you answer the
specific examples?

> You mentioned a specific ostracon. Do you have a
> picture clear enough to read that you can share
> with the group?

Some of the following sites are in Hebrew:
http://archaeology.huji.ac.il/scribe/mezad/index.htm
(Obviously the photo up front, but see also links #3, #4, #5)
http://mikranet.cet.ac.il/pages/item.asp?item=3D11131
(You can click on the picture for a close up)
http://www.tau.ac.il/~yavneyam/viewer.htm

Yitzhak Sapir